Deep and Dying Breath
by sleepingswan
Summary: Being unable to cope with Emma's death and constantly breaking down with the visions of her wife, Regina seeks help in hopes of getting better.
1. PART ONE

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to ABC's Once Upon a Time.

**Pairing:** Regina Mills/Emma Swan

**Rating:** T

**Summary:** Being unable to cope with Emma's death and constantly breaking down with the visions of her wife, Regina seeks help in hopes of getting better.

**Note:** Based on Nemo's post (parrrilla|tumblr - post/39241370594). I tried to check for spelling and grammar mistakes, but I'm sorry for any you may find. It's a three part story; and think of it as alternative for no magic – and other obvious reasons. If you have time, feel free to drop a review, I'd love to know what you think. Thanks!

* * *

**DEEP AND DYING BREATH**

* * *

**PART ONE**

If facing the light yellow painting of the front door was supposed to give her some determination, it was failing miserably.

Taking one step at a time, and wondering if she had made the right call going down there or if she should just turn back and drown her sorrows in alcohol every few feet, she made her way from the car to the porch in record time – even a turtle would out run her.

Regina Mills was asking for help. It hadn't been easy to accept even that she needed someone to help her with _household chores_. Forcing herself to admit that she needed help from a man she held little respect for to deal with how someone was so abruptly taken from her life was something that was just outside her capacity.

Willing to swallow the pride she was left with, she did get herself as close to knocking on the door as she felt capable of – so close she could notice the tiny cracks on the old painting, tracing weird patterns she might stare at just to avoid actually knocking, so close she could see herself reflected on the peephole.

That reflection had been what made her turn around, tempted to leave.

Puffy reddened eyes did not go well on a mayor. Regina had tried and hid them behind several layers of makeup, got her hair done in a quite believable way and managed to drive and arrive without receiving any weird glances. But knocking on the door and being stared at by some detail freak shrink that would probably guess how many hours she has been crying for was more than she could deal with.

Releasing the breath she didn't know she was holding, Regina looked around the porch. It was painted in the same sickening yellow hue from the door and she had to grab the door jamb for balance. She felt sick to her stomach and the urge to throw up made her taste bile. Swallowing didn't help much, but it was best if she managed to keep her tiny lunch inside.

A nearby bench, also painted in soft yellow, made the perfect excuse for her to drag herself from the door that could either save her or bury her. She dropped herself on the bench, rather than sitting on it with her usual grace, and put her head between her knees, what only helped the nausea to get stronger. But she stuck with that position, taking breaths as deep as she could.

Years of pretending to listen to commoners talk about their silly lives and their silly problems had taught her how to clear her mind better than any meditation instructor could, and she usually recurred to this technique to avoid conflicts with herself – but lately, her mind had been so full of thoughts she had no control over and cleaning her mind didn't work anymore. Until the nausea gave her pause and she had a few seconds of nothing – for a few moments, she thought about nothing, worried about nothing, felt nothing.

But when she looked up, she saw her.

Passing in front of the house, behind the bushes that grew wild, thick and high in the garden, she saw blonde hair. She saw red leather jacket and a playful smile that always had gotten her to do anything, hands going through blond curls and she could swear she heard a "Kid!" echoing through the air. She held her breath, as she constantly does nowadays, but the faint scent that always came with that sight hit her, as if being within her – a light reminder of the perfume that used to wake her up in the morning mixed with that skin smell that used to rock her to sleep.

Regina held on to that sight for dear life, trying not to blink, trying not to move, trying to freeze that moment in time.

But just as suddenly as she appeared, Emma was gone.

* * *

"Saving cats in the woods again?" Emma had barely stepped into the kitchen when a sharp voice cut into her mind, reminding her she forgot to clean her boots. Regina was a clean freak and she knew that when she moved in, but even after years of living together, she just couldn't pick up her habits. Or bend to her will, anyway.

"… Huh?"

Pretending she had no idea what Regina was talking about was probably not her brightest moment, but she knew she never really had many of those when it came to the sight of her wife wearing an apron – made by hand, with lace on the edges.

Emma averted her eyes from Regina's skirt back to her eyes, trying to smile innocently, but Regina's frowning and pouting her lips made it clear that guilt was printed all over her face, "You left muddy footprints all over my living room."

"How can you possibly _know_ that?!" Emma glanced at the floor behind her, looking for big splashes of mud giving it away, but all she could find was a few stains of light brown sand, "You can't even notice them! Do you have some kind of super power I'm not aware of or…?"

Her voice trailed off when a guttural laugh reached her ears, "You can tell when people are lying. I can tell when a certain blonde enters the house in such a rush there is no way she could have stopped on the entrance and properly cleaned her shoes," Regina bends over to open the oven wearing mittens and a fork being loosely held, "That noisy bug of yours gave you away. And you are not known for being very neat, now are you, Miss Swan?"

Emma made a point to argue every time the brunette called her "Miss Swan" – unless it was used in the bedroom, because truth be told, two "Mrs. Mills" was a little confusing – but the smell coming from the oven was just too good to not let this one go.

"_Gods_, it smells good." Emma stood on her tiptoes to see what Regina was reaching for in the over, trying not to stare at how her too revealing pencil skirt folded around her hips and failing miserably. Licking her lips with the tip of her tongue seemed perverted even to her, but Emma couldn't avoid noticing how great her wife looked in a power suit before turning her attention back to the cooking, "What are you baking?"

"Apple strudel," Regina barely had time to turn and put the pan on the counter before Emma had made her way through the kitchen, grabbed a fork and a knife and was standing right next to her with a 'can I please get some?' face that was a clear copy of Henry's, "You are not getting any of it until you clean the floor, Sheriff."

Emma pouted as Regina took her knife away and slid the pan away from her reach, covering it with a cloth, "Good point, I _am_ the Sheriff. Don't you think I work hard enough protecting this town to deserve some of this piece of heaven you baked?" knowing how Regina reacted to unexpected physical contact, Emma put a hand on her wife's waist, right when her skirt began, and squeezed it softly.

It was low, but she really wanted to taste that strudel and really did not want to clean the floor.

"You do deserve a serving of it. When it's cold enough to not make you sick, and that gives you enough time to clean your trail." Her voice oscillated from really shaky to unbelievably steady between two sentences, her heart fluttering ridiculously the moment she felt the warmth of her wife's hand squeeze her flesh. She cupped Emma's cheek, making the blonde close her eyes for a moment, enjoying the sudden display of affection, "And _I_ am mayor of this town you protect, I clean enough messes on my daily routine. You can clean yours just fine."

At this point, none of them was really bothered by the stains on the floor or the lack of food being chewed. Emma pressed her body against Regina's, making the brunette turn her back to the counter, sliding her arms from a blackmailer grip to a loving hug. Feeling the hand on her cheek pulling a few loose hair strings behind her ear while being engulfed in a one-arm hug made her lips turn into a smile on their own accord, being reflected on the face standing inches away from her.

"Can I kiss my way out of it?" Emma whispered, willingly drowning herself in those hazel eyes, knowing she would have to clean the floor and eat more apple strudel than her wife and their son together.

The blind certainty of spending the rest of the afternoon with Regina until Henry got home and dragged them to play with one of his new action figures or watch a movie, made her warm inside and comfortable enough to play for a few more moments – comfortable because she knew they had gotten past the point of getting into a fight every time Emma left her mess laying somewhere or Regina tried to boss her around.

Instead of shouting at Emma's attempt to buy her with kisses, pretending it bothered her when it was nothing but amusing, Regina smirked a bit and replied in a whisper just as soft, "You can try…"

Emma grinned like a twelve-year old before closing the distance between their lips, holding Regina's lower lip between hers for a second before asking for passage that was happily granted, deepening the kiss and forgetting all of their surroundings.

* * *

The longer she stared at the green leaves swaying as the wind hit them, the bigger the lump in her throat got.

Part of her, the rational part of her being that had been shrunk each day a bit more for the past months, was screaming to her to get back to that door, cover the peephole to not see her reflection, knock as hard as she could and beg for help – because she needed it. Her pride wouldn't get her anywhere, and being so self-assured in her mental balance would knock her feet off the ground in no time.

But the emotional part of her, that one part that was fed by these moments when her brain lacked the ability, or more likely energy, to not give up to her most secret desires, believed that it was true. Even when her nature told her to ignore it, to pretend it wasn't there because it wasn't anything more than a product of her too tired mind, she held on to golden curls flashing through windows, or a too familiar silhouette rushing from one room to another.

She held on to those insane moments as if she needed them to live. And maybe, she really did.

The smallest part of her tried to convince her not to, but her body was no longer obeying her mind – it would obey only her heart. Her legs carried her towards the sidewalk, hand clutching her perfectly ironed shirt in the spot where her heart was beating so violently against, lips twisted in a thin line, chin trembling, fluttering eyes trying to hold back tears that stubbornly burned her eyelids.

And then, after walking down the entrance and getting to the sidewalk, feeling like she had just ran five miles, she was standing in the very same spot where she had seen Emma merely seconds ago.

She felt irrational. She felt ridiculously insane the moment she found herself falling apart in the middle of the town she was known for running. But _feeling_ it didn't keep her from looking around, running to the corner of the street, searching for blonde curls that had always been so striking in the middle of the crowd – Regina tried more than anything make herself believe that she would be able to hold her wife once again and let go of all worries when Emma held her back, both of them drowning on the feeling of each other.

Regina didn't care if she went mental – she just wanted to feel safe again.

Then the realization came – slowly at first, just a tingling feeling on the tip of her fingers; and then all at once, with a void being punched through her chest, like someone had taken her heart away.

She would never hold her wife again. She would not ever feel Emma's fingers digging into her skin, spreading warmth through her entire body with just as much as a kiss on her forehead. She wouldn't sneak into the living room to stare at how peacefully the woman that would grow old with her was sleeping – she would spend the nights alone, sitting in the couch with a glass of wine and heartache.

All Regina could manage was to stumble her way back to the porch, hot salty tears finally making their way down her cheek, staining her makeup and the shirt she used to share with her wife. It burned her eyes to let them fall, so taken aback by the sharp pain of suddenly _knowing_.

Dead.

Emma was dead.

For the past few months, Regina had been punched in the face by this awareness – over and over again. It felt like a never ending nightmare. The woman who had taught her about hope was haunting her in her sleep, making her believe she would wake up to sluggish eyes gazing at her instead of being pulled from unconsciousness with her wife buried six feet underground.

She could barely deal with seeing her in her sleep, but she was being haunted by a companion she loved to have. Emma was at her work, bossing her to solve a security related issue; at their house, asking for yet another serving of whatever she had made while watching cartoons with their five year old son; at their bedroom, whispering good night with a not forthcoming kiss.

Before her painfully silent cry turned into the desperate sob it always did, Regina gathered all of the strength she had been left with to finally knock on Archie Hopper's door – three slow knocks that no one other than a shrink would hear.

Hugging herself, trying to squeeze her rib cage back to being whole, as if she could mend her heart by enfolding it hard enough, not trying to wipe her tears away or hold them back, without making the tiniest effort to recompose herself, Regina waited until the door opened with a soft click.

Archie's face changed from professionally sympathetic to legitimately worried in the half a second it took her face to sink into his sight. He waited.

She breathed out a single sob, before crying out, "I'm seeing her".


	2. PART TWO

_Disclaimers in Part One._

* * *

**PART TWO**

* * *

It was a pleasant surprise when the ringing of the bell placed right above the entrance door brought the warm smell of coffee and pie instead of the usual annoyance.

After too many bad days, she could say she was feeling rather okay that morning – she had been awaken by her five year old son pulling a string of hair behind her ear with his tiny fingers and asking if "mommy, is it time to be awake yet?" two hours before she would think about getting up.

Making her way from his babysitter's house to the diner wearing high heels had been a poor decision, but she felt like walking and drinking a cup of coffee like everyone else in the town. Like any normal person would do in an ordinary morning, and that was like she was trying to talk herself into believing.

Regina felt all eyes turning to watch her walking in, and she couldn't decide if they were expecting her to burst into tears or boss around to "release her wrath". Trying not to think she was more likely to perform the first action, she walked to the counter, staring back at Ruby until the young woman stopped to look at her with pity and decided to take her order.

"I want a-" she stopped mid phrase. She had never really ordered at the diner – it was always Emma who asked for something really good with cinnamon on top of it that she not ever bothered to learn the name of because, well, she assumed Emma would always order it for her, "Whatever Em- I used to order here, I don't remember the name."

She wasn't quite ready to say her wife's name just yet. Two weeks of working her way to stand tall again could crumble in front of her, and starting over wasn't something she was fond of.

Leaving Ruby to prepare it and whisper "She looks terrible" to her granny, Regina walked to her usual booth, without even thinking that it was only _her_ usual booth because it had been Emma's favorite spot once.

Regina sat down, sliding to the side to make room for a person that would not be joining her. She crossed her fingers in front of her and turned to gaze at her wife, who would be making conversation with one or another person in the diner, but instead, she just saw heads turning away from her in a sudden motion and it hit her. She had been waiting for Emma to come again.

When Ruby came with what looked like hot cocoa, Regina had moved to the closest corner of the booth and grabbed her phone to browse through some newspaper while having breakfast. She didn't say thanks – never said before, and she wasn't going to become some poor widow who everyone feels sorry for.

"You know, it was really nice of Ruby to bring you the right drink," Regina heard a too familiar voice that should frighten her, but only made her heart a little warmer, "She could just as well had brought you bitter black coffee."

Looking up from her phone, she saw a finger scrapping a bit of whipped cream out of the top of her cocoa and taking it to a pair of rosy lips, "Well, dear, that wouldn't be a risk if you had been here to order it for me."

Emma half pouted, half smiled as she laid her arms on the table, looking playfully at her wife. Regina gave her a hard look, but her tiny smile said she had no problem in letting this one go. "I miss you," Regina lost her smile as soon as her words came out.

Watching Regina take a sip out of the mug standing in front of her, Emma smiled wider and more truly, before letting it fall apart, turn into a half frown, "I know".

Regina turned her attention back to her phone, browsing through the Daily Mirror, gladly noticing its articles talked about nothing she hadn't been previously warned about, and only after reading all headlines, she let herself speak again, "Where the hell have you been, Emma?"

The question had no answer for a few moments. For Regina, it felt like time had frozen. Or rather, gone away – nothing existed beside the two of them. All she saw was Emma, wearing her dark red leather jacket and her hair all pulled back into a ponytail, staring at her with just as much love as she had shown almost three weeks ago, when they last saw each other.

A sound of ringing bell pierced through Regina's ear and Emma dropped her gaze to Regina's hands, placed just close enough for her to reach and stroke, and say she had been working on some case back in Boston and she was sorry for making her worried.

But Regina knew she wasn't going to reach out for her hand. Emma was wearing the same look as she did on the day of their first date – she was afraid of touching Regina. She could understand the hesitation back then, but now it just seemed so out of place, so ridiculous, that Regina just reached out for her hand.

And Emma drew hers back before their skin could meet.

"You will find out someday, Regina" Emma made her name sound so sweet and loving she just had to close her eyes for a moment to appreciate it – it hardly mattered if they weren't holding hands, the way she spoke her name was enough.

When Regina opened her eyes again, Emma was gone.

She blinked again and turned her head – everyone in the diner was staring at her with her hand stretched out to nothing in particular. Closing her hands in fists and gathering all self-respect she could find, she drew herself from the booth and walked away; only partially knowing she had been talking out loud when she was sitting alone.

It was the first time she saw her dead wife.

* * *

Paper tissues tainted black and beige piled up on the coffee table in front of her, letting her know her makeup – her cover up – was ruined. It has been nearly twenty minutes since she had stepped in the office and not a word had been said yet. All she seemed to be capable of was crying her feelings out.

Archie hadn't said anything because his philosophy was to let people start conversations, especially when it was about Madame Mayor trying to deal with a major loss. So he offered her tissues and a compassionate look, watching her soothe herself as he knew she had been doing for a while now.

With a deep breath that came out shakier than she thought possible, Regina got up. She stood as tall as she could, fully aware her chin was trembling and tears were pooling in her eyes, and walked towards the bookshelf behind the couch. Standing up purely by force of will, she tried to talk herself into stop crying, stop shaking so badly, stop remembering, stop reliving the worst moment of her life over and over again.

Her next deep breath was a little steadier, but her voice hoarse from crying, "She is everywhere".

The shrink lied back on his chair, crossing his fingers in front of him and looking at her, "When did it first begin? When did you see her for the first time?"

Regina looked so fragile. Even now, more composed, she was a far cry from the strong and powerful woman this town elected as mayor. Archie could see her swallowing repeatedly for a few moments, her stare now lost somewhere other than the glass of the window she was staring at.

"At the diner, two weeks after she died… about four months ago." Regina frowned a bit, still more lost in her own memories than present at the clinic, "She talked to me, saying Ruby was nice to have brought me the right beverage when I couldn't remember its name. I said I missed her."

"Does she always talk to you?" he tried to keep up a conversation, but as Regina walked towards the window and leaned her forehead against the glass, Archie knew he had lost her for a moment.

Looking outside, she saw a tree – it wasn't an apple tree, it was a fruitless tree, one of those that blooms really nice flowers around spring and remains almost naked throughout the year – and it reminded her of her Honeycrisp tree. Regina smiled with the memory of Emma with a chainsaw, threatening to tear more than a branch of it out, as angry as Regina always loved to see her because the brunette got her into jail. Little did she know it would be the start of their almost a decade long relationship.

"No." Regina answered in a plain voice when Archie had gave up the answer, "Sometimes she talks to me like she had been here all this time. Sometimes she stares at me and says something I spend days trying to decipher." It all came out all at once, her voice as steady as it was going to get.

Turning her sight away from the tree and back at the shrink, she tried to picture him as a tiny little cricket, which would listen and not tell anyone – she had been through enough public humiliation for a lifetime, "But mostly, she just stares at me. I tend to bump into her at random places, and she is just… there."

Regina wandered around the room before stopping at the couch and letting herself fall back on it, her posture long lost, her head falling forwards in defeat. She wanted nothing more than this situation to change – she wanted either Emma alive, sharing a life with her, helping her to bring out their son, talking about ordinary day-to-day things, touching with that burning passion that never ceased to be; or to accept the fact that it would never happen again.

Not having a happy ending is painful enough, but being given false hope is far worse.

* * *

Glancing at the clock on the wall before leaving her office, she noticed it was past eleven. Overtime hours are not on the top of her funny things to do on a Friday night list, but the paperwork needed to be dealt with. Almost as much as she needed the days off she took.

After dealing with Emma's funeral, Regina came back to work immediately, hiding her emotional damage under piles of unnecessary budgets and plans for upgrading a town that was already on its best situation. And, well, she could agree it had been a poor decision.

But when faced with the choice of becoming the poor weeping widow, she chose to be the bitter grieving mayor.

A month of religiously working from nine to five and going home to a house that suddenly felt too big, a mourning child, an empty bed and a dead wife haunting your dreams – and more than a few awake moments – was enough for her to take a week off work and spend it talking to Henry about his mother's death and watching cartoons with him.

He was dealing with it better than she was. Thirty seven days after tossing a handful of dirty on a coffin as if it would give her some closure, she still cried herself to sleep and woke up in the middle of the night to stare at the ceiling, cursing herself every time to think she could have done different.

Regret was a bitchy feeling, and it was eating her alive.

'Take one day at a time', Mary Margaret had told her when she passed by her house to visit Henry. The boy was very fond of the woman Regina would barely stand just to please her wife. Astounding advice, she had thought back then – but now it was exactly what she found herself doing.

Regina had made it through the day. She had had lunch at one, as usual, and worked her way through a meeting with David Nolan, who had been taking care of the Sheriff department. After five, when everyone had left, she had put on some music to ease the heavy silence of her too big room, cellos and pianos blasting through the building, making the glasses shake. And now she was leaving, as tired as she could get – she might even sleep through the night this time.

It was not until she left the building that she noticed it was pouring down. Her car was parked right in front of the city hall, but that didn't keep her from being soaked wet when she got in, after trying to jog on heels in the rain.

After locking the door after her, she rested her hands on the wheel and heard a soft chuckle echoing through the air. It was almost a shock when she realized it was her – she was laughing. Regina couldn't remember the last time she had been in the rain, but she remembered how happy she was when, after begging her mother for quite a while, she went outside to jump in the puddles with her boat shoes on and a raincoat that didn't do much to keep her dry.

Allowing the happy memories to warm her inside, she turned the car on and shifted the gear, ready to go home to a warm bath and some dystopia literature she found herself liking very much, when she saw a shadow on the rain.

Leaning against a lamp post nearby, skin tight jeans even tighter due the rain, blue leather jacket glistening under the soft light, arms crossed to hide a shiver, blonde curls straightened with the weight of water, eyes almost shut to protect from the rain, lips stretched in a smile Regina could never get sick of – Emma was staring at her.

Regina closed her eyes and hugged herself, letting the engineer die – she had seen her dead wife, again. She thought she might be used to it by now, but it was always a surprise. It was always a punch in the guts.

With a deep breath, Regina opened her eyes just to find out Emma was gone. She couldn't help but sigh. Knowing she was losing her mind was not enough for her not to wish she could see her wife somewhere other than photographs and homemade videos.

She let her fingers bury in her hair, before making their way through her wet strings, and turned the car back on, actually managing to start her drive and not jump when Emma asks from the sit at her right, "Where are we going?"

Regina swallowed through the lump in her throat, eyes fixed on the road for the turn she had to make. After releasing a breath she didn't notice she was holding, she gazed at the blonde and smiled, giving in to the temptation of having her wife back with her, "We are going home, Ems."


	3. PART THREE

_Disclaimers in Part One._

**Note:** This chapter ended up being quite longer than the previous two, but I decided to leave it all as one giant chapter. I hope the ending doesn't disappoint you – I tried my best to bring some closure to it, but we all who lost someone know it doesn't go away in one therapy session.

* * *

**PART THREE**

* * *

"Madam- Regina," Archie called her up, after waiting for whatever was going on inside her head to dissipate. For several times over the hour she had been in his clinic, he saw her eyes getting darker and more mysterious than usually, as if a heavy cloud was standing over her, and stay that way for a while, sometimes accompanied by tears or a sad smile – then it seemed like the wind would blow the cloud away, she would snap out of it and continue to talk to him.

And she did it again. As if waking up from a turbulent sleep, she suddenly turned her head towards him, blinking the thoughts away and staring at nothing for a moment, then frowning at the shrink and pouting her lips in frustration, "Yes?"

Being careful with the manner he dealt with other people's emotions and beliefs was part of the job, but it would be an understatement to tell he was walking on eggshells when it came to dealing with Madame Mayor Mills seeing her dead wife. But another part of the job was to make sure people face reality in a way that wouldn't crush them to depression, so he took his time to look at Regina.

Never before the all too powerful Regina looked so fragile. Her lips still formed an impatient pout and her brows were drawn in a way that terrified everyone who worked for her, but her eyes were broken – aside from being puffy and reddened and having tears constantly pooling up in them, they had such a pain that it poured out, it trespassed any attempt of looking tough and strong.

Talking a deep break, Archie decided to help her understand what was happening inside her mind and tried to keep his voice as smooth and calming as his years of shrinking had taught him, "You have to understand that maybe these hallucinations are just your mind trying and finding a way to deal with such a great loss."

She blew the air out in a weird way that could have sounded like a chuckle if it weren't for the look on her face. "I am losing it, Dr. Hopper," Regina took a moment to swallow through the lump in her throat, "It has been over three months and I don't see any of this dealing my mind has been doing!"

With his calm unaltered, the shrink leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at a stain on the carpet, "It takes time for one to-"

"I do not _have_ the time," Regina snapped, annoyed with the shrink talk, "I do not need therapy, I do not need to sit here and talk to you about the woman I loved and how we dealt about things and what lays unresolved between us. I need a solution. I demand an immediate solution."

Her mayor voice was at its finest. Comfortable in her well fitted power suit, it was almost her second nature to order things around and expect results as soon as possible. Just the possibility of having to go through years of fights and arguments and sleepless nights, trying to find the reason behind her hallucinations, and consequently bringing up every painful moment of her relationship with Emma, was unbearable to her. And to think it would take weeks, maybe months… Her patience could only work so far.

Archie gave her time. Regina was more than smart enough to understand the mind didn't work like that; it didn't heal itself within minutes just because she wanted it to – she just had to accept that. But her having come and knock on his door meant she had at least subconsciously accepted that, he just had to find a way to make it surface.

"Tell me something", he said softly, before she dragged herself into her reverie again, "How is Henry?"

The question made her insides twist in anger. Regina thought back half hour, when she was crying her guts out, unable to hold the minimum control over her emotions, and felt ashamed. Or at least, puzzled the emotional rollercoaster she has been riding these days. Melting down in front of someone she always thought to be very incompetent in his job was from where half of her shame was coming from. The other half was from not knowing what to do with herself and resigning to feel angry at someone who she could not blame at all. "I believe I have him in therapy. I am under the impression you know exactly how my son is, Dr. Hopper."

"_Dear lord, I wish I had Emma here,_" the thought crossed her mind for the first time that day, which could be counted as a victory. Regina could deal with diplomatic situations just fine, but talking with someone she had little respect for was a task she always begged her wife to don't put her through. Emma would chat with the shrink while Regina stared at her curls and curves, pretending to pay attention to whatever they were discussing.

Releasing a breath she did not realize she was holding, Regina tried to calm herself down. Although knowing it wouldn't work, she took ten, fifteen deep breaths and even tried the whole "your anger is a purple balloon, let it go away" thing – and finally, she felt her chest rising and descending in calm and regular intervals, her stomach not burning as much.

"He is fine," she heard herself reply in a controlled voice, "He misses his mother, but he is dealing with it better than I am. In the first few weeks, he used to call her name in his sleep every night and wake up startled, crying for her," her face became darker with the memory of her five year old son holding tight as she had him within her arms, his face covered in sweat and fear, "Now he still cries sometimes and calls her name, but he never mentioned he has been seeing her, so I'm taking this is a good thing."

As the relief of getting her to talk instead of making her walk out of the door sunk down on Archie, the worry of how bad Regina was dealing with Emma's death hit him in the face. But keeping her talking about Henry was his strategy for now, "How did you tell him?"

"I believe you already went through it with him," her annoyance was returning, but also was the look on Henry's face when she delivered the news.

"I heard it from a five year old – not the most accurate way to get to know things," Archie's told her, trying to get her version of the story because really, all he knew was not enough to make sense of much.

It took Regina a moment or two to answer him, and when she did, her voice was not barely as steady as she hoped it would, "I sat him down and told him that his mother had to leave us and that she was sorry for it, but she was now in a very nice place, living with his grandfather," As if considering it had not been a good idea what she told her son, she made a pause, "I made sure that he knew how much she loved him and how important it was that he kept her memory burning bright on his mind."

Archie saw Regina drifting away to her day dream land, staying merely seconds there this time, and waited for her to come back to the present before he could say anything, "You know, it is hard for a five year old to grasp the concept of death, but we are definitely working on it. You dealt with it just right."

It felt like the shrink was lifting a weight way too heavy from Regina's shoulder – she didn't have the greatest motherly example and she always trusted Emma's instinct when it came to talk to Henry about delicate issues. The worst so far had been explaining why boys and girls look different "down there", and even Emma had a hard time dealing with the issue. But that was nothing compared to the burden of having to tell your child one of their parents died.

"Thank you," her voice was barely audible, but the gratitude was clearly shown in her eyes. For the first time, she looked at Archie like he was someone who could really help her get through it.

But she was not prepared to answer his next question. The split second in which she felt it had been a good idea to go to his clinic and talk to him melted when he let the words come out of his mouth as calmly as ever, "Tell me about the day Emma died."

Regina felt a shiver going down her spine and her breath was cut short – she was not ready to hear someone say aloud the Emma had died, let alone talk about it. Trying to swallow past the growing lump in her throat didn't help her tears from rolling down her cheeks in a painful cry, and she felt a death grip around her heart as her throat burned to keep the sob away. It wasn't supposed to hurt this much.

Closing her eyes to try and hold on to the little composure she had gotten back, she tried to talk her way out of the question, her voice choked and hoarse, sounding as weak as it could get, "I'm sure you heard enough already."

Archie knew he was hurting her, knew that insisting in digging deeper in the moment she tried so hard to leave behind her was nearly cruel, but in order to get her better, he needed to get her worse, "I read the Daily Mirror's articles and heard too many rumors about what happened, but I never heard it from you."

* * *

Mary Margaret had called asking them if it was okay for Henry to spend the night at her place – they were making a volcano! Ignoring Regina's frowning, Emma said that sure, it was okay and she would be picking him up the next morning before work.

Regina got really agitated after giving up a fight with Emma for not even bothering to ask her opinion on the matter – it was the first time her baby boy would stay the night away, "We didn't get the change to kiss him good night! He doesn't have his pajamas or his pillow, and can you guarantee me he will be sleeping before nine? Do you think he will behave well? We never really got to tell him how to comport himself when spending the night away."

After seeing enough of her wife marching up and down their living room, Emma threw her arms around Regina, hugging her waist from behind and resting her chin on the brunette's shoulder, thinking that maybe that would calm that woman down, "I'm sure he will be just fine," her arms squeezed her tighter, trying to comfort her, "We educated him well, he won't be making any mess. And he is _five_, it's not like he will set Mary Margaret's house on fire or anything."

Letting herself being comforted, Regina threw her head back until it was resting on Emma's shoulder and wrapped her arms around herself, covering her wife's arms with hers, "But they are making a volcano," she said in such a sad voice as if it would explain why she was freaking out.

"Pretty sure they are making it with baking soda and vinegar," Emma let out a soft laugh, finding Regina's 'over attached mommy' moment hilarious, and started swaying to a song only she was hearing, "I think they are safe."

Whispering in Regina's ears and being able to see goose bumps rising in her arms made Emma's night much better – that would only get even better if she could finally get some of Regina's apple strudel, but she decided to leave it for later when Regina turned in her embrace, throwing her arms around Emma's neck and following the rhythm of her slow dancing.

While Emma's arms remained tight around Regina's waist, she felt as fingers made their way through golden curls, making her shiver and get matching goose bumps when fingernails grazed the skin of her neck, "So we have the house for ourselves tonight?"

She would never get used to Regina's hoarse voice echoing through her skin as she kissed her jugular, making any sentence sound dirty – Emma would never be over loving each word that dripped from her mouth in that voice. Emma was barely able to mumble an "uhum" in confirmation, before searching for Regina's lips.

For a moment, Regina tried to tease and keep their lips barely touching, but the feeling of Emma's fingers digging in her skin, her warm breath against her own and how, even with the slightest touch, their skin was already on fire. Emma's soft moan made her decision crumble into pieces and she let herself deepen the kiss, nibbling her teeth against her wife's bottom lip, her tongue again hers, inhaling her shaky breaths and gleefully accepting all the passion Emma was putting into the kiss.

Regina slid her hand down Emma's side almost in synchrony with Emma's cupping her face, pulling it as close as it was possible; their chests rising and falling in the same frantic rhythm as they started to run out of oxygen. When they broke the kiss to breathe, their foreheads were laid against each other, lips almost grazing, hands still in place and hips swaying from side to side.

"What are we dancing to?" Regina asked softly, starting to take little steps according to Emma's guidance. She didn't care much, to be honest, she just wanted to hear Emma talking – her voice always got deeper after they kissed.

Emma smiled against her wife's lips, brushing her cheek with her thumb, "I don't know. Something by John Mayer, I guess," and started humming a melody that fit neither any of the singer's song nor their rhythm, but again, Regina couldn't care less.

The minutes passed by them without keeping their attention, their minds focused on every detail of each other. In moments like this, when they were filled with each other, both women could say without blinking that they were fully happy. They would fight and say nasty things to each other the very next day, but holding each other in their arms, memorizing how they smell, how their skin tasted, how their body reacted to each touch, it was a piece of heaven they could put a grasp on.

Something irritated Regina's nose, and she was sure it wasn't because she was trying too hard to inhale Emma's scent. "Are you smelling anything weird?" her voice was drowsy when she spoke again, the itchy feeling that the smell caused turning her stomach upside down.

Emma let her go, happily noticing the frustrated groan escaping Regina's throat, and sniffed around, trying to smell whatever her wife was smelling. It was a weird smell, but she couldn't place it, "Does it smell like… gas?" The blonde frowned and turned to Regina, that would have shrugged if she wasn't a bit too worry, "Come on, don't make that face."

"Excuse me if I get worried when my wife casually mentions it might be a gas leaking in this house," Regina snapped, mentally going through every inspection she ever demanded and who she could sue for it, while gently stroking Emma's back in worry.

Emma kissed her frown to soften, and then her lips, "Stay here and I'll check, okay?"

"Of course, because that will calm me down," and she felt more than saw Emma letting go of her grip, "I'm serious, Emma. I'm calling for help, and you better not move," Regina established it as a fact and walked towards the phone, dialing a number she had memorized back when she first became mayor.

"I'm the help you were going to get, honey. It's like you are never going to get used to be married to the Sheriff," Emma laughed out loud while walking towards the door and glancing at her wife stopping halfway through dialing and realizing it was true with an even more worried look at her face, "I'm trained for it. Hush now, and stop worrying."

Regina walked towards the couch, ready to grab Emma's hand and stop – but someone had to go there and check. "_It's probably nothing_", she told herself as she crossed her arms, leaned against the back of the couch and shouted, "Be careful!"

"I always am!"

And those were Emma's last words before opening the kitchen door and entering a too poor of oxygen environment and searching for the source of the leaking. She was supposed to come back when it got too dangerous and leave the house, go to Granny's Bed and Breakfast and call whoever was responsible for it and had the right equipment to deal with it. She was most definitely not supposed to open the over and be thrown away by the force of the fire that was rapidly spreading through what is felt like thin air, making Regina's eyes widen with shock when she much as glanced at the burning room and her mind went blank.

It all went blank.

Then black.

She remembers flashes of it.

She remembers calling the fire department. She remembers screaming and a lot of crying. She remembers not answering the door. She remembers a lot of smokes from the fire extinguishers, an unforgettable smell of burning flesh. She remembers someone throwing a blanket on her. She remembers a body passing through her. She remembers being carried to the hospital. She remembers someone telling her Emma's injuries had been too severe. She remembers someone telling her, without emotion, "Mrs. Mills is dead. I'm sorry."

And for a moment, she thought she was the one Mrs. Mills that had died.

She wished for it.

* * *

A heavy silence weighed on them. The sunset left the room dimly lit, keeping the shrink from taking a proper look at Regina's face. But in all honesty, he didn't need to – he knew what kind of look he would find printed on her face.

When she stopped talking, after she had let it all pour down from her chest, almost without stopping and holding her breath when she took a pause, they sit quietly. She was drained. She was empty of all dark secrets she had been holding on to, any admission of guilt she had been pleading to make.

After what it felt like hours, but it was no more than a few minutes, Archie walked across the room to turn the lights on, facing the wall for a moment to allow Regina to recompose, if she wanted to. When he turned back, he concluded that she didn't. Taking slow steps towards the woman hugging her knees as tight as she could sitting on the furthest corner of the couch with a glassy stare plastered on her face, he tried to keep in mind she was still the mayor, and putting an arm around her would do anything but comfort her.

Unable to do anything except watch her slowly drag herself from the memories, Archie busied himself with a book – a fairytale book, where happy endings are possible even after one of the star crossed lovers die. He could give it to Henry, and she would read it to him in hope that it would give some hope for the poor kid – for that poor woman.

Deciding to keep it until Henry's next appointment, the shrink walked back to his initial seat and said something that she needed to hear, that anyone with the slightest tact would say, "It was an accident, Regina."

She was past the point of feeling angry with Archie for making such an obnoxious statement – she was past the point of feeling _anything_. All of her too complicated emotions that she had been holding on too tight had left her when she relived what happened months ago as if it was happening again. And as she was talking about it, she felt all the doubts, all the wrath, all the torn emotions leaving her body, one by one, along with her sentences that described something that now seemed like had been lived by somebody else, leaving her with nothing but pain and longing.

"Do I look like I care it was an accident?" she forced her eyes to focus again, only now realizing she had been crying all along – the knees of her pants were soaked wet and her eyes felt puffy, those silent painful tears still running down her cheeks, "If I had checked for leaking more often, she wouldn't have died. It is not that complicated."

In two sentences, the pitch of her voice changed too many times to anyone consider it normal. It wasn't shaky, it wasn't steady – it was just as unstable as her heart.

"You cannot blame yourself for her death," Regina heard Archie saying, as a good shrink would, but the words sounded as hollow as she was feeling. Nothing had mattered much to her these past few weeks, but someone telling her she could not – instead of she _should not_ – blame herself for what happened was almost laughable.

And she would have laughed, if her insides weren't trying to rip through her skin to breathe pure air.

"I have to blame someone," Regina brought her feet back to the ground, smoothed her pants and suit and reached for a tissue with trembling hands, not even bothering to really clean her face – she only took it because her education told her to, not because she was trying to look presentable any longer, "Someone should pay for her dying."

Archie watched her playing with the tissue in her hand until it shredded, and watched her taking another one and starting playing with this one. The shrink watched her features change as she focused on the paper being torn apart – it went from empty to a kind of sad he would never get used to.

When her fingers let the tissue fall down and her palms turned into fists, her nails clearly digging in her skin, Archie blurted out in surprise, but still in a very calm voice, "Whatever you are thinking of doing, don't. Accidents happen. You could have been the one to open that door."

And one look at Regina's face when she stared at her, made him regret those words. Her slight frown made her look like she was considering the possibility, and her eyes drifted away from him just as suddenly as she had laid them on him at the first place, and the tiniest of smiles surfaced her lips, "At least Emma would be alive."

Not knowing what to do with herself, Regina hugged her waist, but that was a too familiar reminder of how Emma used to hug her, so she just settled for twisting her wedding ring on his finger. It was a beautiful piece of jewelry, pure gold with a twist in the part that held a tiny sapphire, as blue as it could be – Emma would say it represents true love, and Regina didn't really care if the meaning of that rock was it, but this is what it meant for the both of them.

A memory crossed Regina's mind – Emma and she were choosing wedding rings, and Emma said, merely months before their marriage, in front of hundreds of the most diverse kinds of rings, "If I die first, I don't want to be buried with my ring. I want you to keep it in a place that won't hurt you, but you can reach for me any time you want to." Regina stared at her with wide open eyes, as if trying to keep a kid from touching something, trying to keep her fiancée from touching an issue that was so sad as it was far away from their present, and finally brushed it away with, "What makes you think we won't die together?"

Being guided by nothing but instinct, Regina raised her hand and took a chain from inside her blouse, a ring hanging from it – Emma's ring. It was one size too small for Regina, and sliding it from side to side on the chain for a moment, she remembered how that ring felt on her skin when Emma's fingers were drawing patterns on her back, on her thighs, on her stomach. She bit her tongue to keep her heart from swelling when her mind stubbornly reminded herself she would never feel that fingers against her skin again.

After the funeral, when she found Emma's ring resting on the night stand on her side of the bed, Regina didn't notice what the flames had done to it. She remembered what Emma had told her – to keep it near her, so her first act was to find a chain and make sure it stayed as close to her heart as she could.

But now, examining it again, she could see a few spots that would show melting marks – and that gave her a glimpse of how hot the fire against Emma's skin must have been. Thinking back to the first part of Emma's request – '_keep it in a place that won't hurt you_' –, Regina remembered of a tiny box that was sit on one of the shelves at her home office, and about the fuss Emma had made when she gave it to the blonde several Christmas ago. It was just a tiny round rosy box with gold flowered "E"s adorning the vintage fabric – the gift had been the necklace inside, but Emma liked the tiny box so much Regina decided to keep it.

And she made a mental note to take the ring out of the chain and put it there, to keep it in a place that wouldn't hurt her, but was still close enough for her to reach for a reminder of her wife any time she wanted to.

"You have to let her go."

For a moment, for a split second when Regina dragged herself back to reality, she saw Emma. She saw her wife sitting on the chair in front of her, looking very seriously into her eyes, and pleading Regina to _let her go_.

"I… can't. I don't want to lose you," her voice came out choked, as if the lump on her throat had finally gotten too big for any sound to past through it. She blinked her new hot tears down her cheek, burning their way through it, and when her eyes opened again, her wife as gone again and a gasp let her chest without her permission.

"But you have to," Archie was back on his sit, knowing that she was seeing her wife again, but keeping his talk in a voice just as calm, "For Henry," Regina blinked and the shrink was still there, his hands joined on his lap, "For yourself".

Blinking again, Regina saw Emma walking from behind the chair where the shrink was and in front of the couch she was more shaking than sitting on. Emma came as close as she had ever gotten as a hallucination, leaning against Regina until her face was inches away from hers. All the details were there, her freckles, her almost imperceptible little scars, her eyelashes fluttering when Regina released her breath. "Good bye, Regina," Emma said softly, with a smile as wide as it was on their wedding day, and almost brushed the back of her hand against Regina's cheek before walking out the closed door.

"For Emma".

* * *

_Fin._


End file.
